Conserving an Ethiopian painting
The painting of the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ and the life of
Bishop Selama has been in the British Museum collection since the
late nineteenth century. It is painted on cotton fabric and when it
was acquired it was stretched on a frame in the Western style.
During the 1960s, it was conserved, lined with nylon net and
re-stretched.
By 2008 this treatment had failed and the
cotton had deteriorated. It was discoloured and had tears and
shedding fibres. The paint was also in poor condition with loss,
wear and flaking. Conservators from the British Museum and the
National Maritime Museum in London worked with scientists and
curators to stop further decay.
The project discovered that the cotton was now
so fine and fragile that it could no longer be stretched like a
canvas painting. Instead a treatment was developed to support the
cotton in a way not generally considered for paintings.
First, flaking paint was re-adhered to the
cotton. Old lining and repairs were removed, millimetre by
millimetre and the back of the painting was gently cleaned with dry
sponges. Tears were flattened and repaired and a semi-transparent
synthetic material was attached to the back. This lining extended
beyond the edge of the painting and was used to hold it around a
new support. Minor losses in the original cotton were painted in to
reduce their impact on the image.
Scientific analysis undertaken in collaboration with MoLAB (an
EU-ARTECH funded mobile laboratory) revealed that many of the
colours had faded, which has changed the painting’s appearance. The
background was originally painted with orpiment, an arsenic
pigment, and would have been bright yellow.
The cotton had degraded (by a process called
acid hydrolysis), resulting in weakness and discolouration of the
fibres. Because of its advanced state of decay the painting remains
more fragile than similar paintings or painted cloth many centuries
older.